How many piano melodies are possible?

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Tuesday, February 20. 2024

How many piano melodies are possible?

Of course not all of them are pleasing, but I have always wondered.

I like the definition of a melody: Something that can be played on a tin whistle. How many melodies are there?

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:03 | Comments (11) | Trackbacks (0)

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What qualifies as different? Is it a different melody if I replace two quarter notes with an eighth note and a dotted quarter note in one measure? And is there any limit to molodies' length?

#1 Michael R. Kesti on 2024-02-20 17:37 (Reply)

Methodology and definitions explained in linked article.

#1.1 RJP on 2024-02-20 17:50 (Reply)

How many scales are there? How many inversions? How many modes?

Johnny Mercer could have answered that question.

#2 TallyWhagger on 2024-02-20 18:46 (Reply)

Forget about Johnny merger, scales, and whatnot.

Just think of a simple piano with 88 keys, each a separate note. Then think of constructing a simple 16-bar melody (OK, sequence) of just quarter notes, so 16 x 4 = 64 notes. That gives 88^64 ~ 2.8x10^124, which, if we could play each one in a single second, would require 8.87x10^116 years, far longer than the estimated life of the universe.

Given that my melodies are but a small set of "real" melodies, I don't think we have any worries about running out of tunes.

#3 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2024-02-20 23:10 (Reply)

There are 7 notes in an Octave and 10 octaves we can hear, and

Low notes have higher notes upon their backs to bite 'em,
And high notes have lesser notes, and so ad infinitum.

Short beats have long beats upon their backs to bite 'em,
And long beats have shorter beats, and so ad infinitum.

Ad infinitum is the key phrase, no?

#4 Fred Z on 2024-02-20 23:59 (Reply)

There are 7 notes in an Octave and 10 octaves we can hear,

Uh, I count 12 notes in the octaves on my piano, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, then around to C, one octave higher. Let's not short ourselves.

#4.1 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2024-02-21 06:53 (Reply)

Somebody in the 30s published a book with a mathematical formula for how pleasing any sequence of notes is.

In addition there's the Dictionary of Musical Themes, which lists 10,000 themes (transpose into the key of C and look up the beginning as a "word" formed of note names), which probably estimates the order of magnitude of allowable melodies. I have the 1975 edition of the 1948 book.

#5 rhhardin on 2024-02-21 05:29 (Reply)

I know nothing about music except that I have (or used to have) perfect pitch and I know what I like. As songs (melodies) are lost to time and disuse, it's logical to think that they will appear again down the road. Thus, we'll never run out of "new" melodies.

#6 RebeccaH on 2024-02-21 10:39 (Reply)

I believe composer Karol Syzamanowski wrote an encylopedia of melodies, sometimes used by jazz musicians as sources for improvisation of solos

#7 peter (Link) on 2024-02-21 11:01 (Reply)

If you include jazz the number is close to infinite.

#8 OneGuy on 2024-02-21 18:53 (Reply)

Yeah, but jazz being what it is, one performer can take a melody and do a new variation for every practice, rehearsal, and performance for a lifetime. Of course, that's still a pretty small number.

#8.1 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2024-02-21 22:43 (Reply)

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Tuesday, February 20. 2024

How many piano melodies are possible?